The Lion King DVD

I've just watched the Lion King as I haven't seen it for years. It is a great film and still my favourite Disney film.

After watching the film I went onto the second disc to watch the making of the film in all aspects. While watching I am writing the notes below.

When they started The Lion King it was the B movie (Pocahontas the A) as they didn’t think people would want animals and wanted people characters. The team being the under-dogs pushed themselves to prove them wrong and that The Lion King can be a great movie and they believe that it was really shown when they started working on the Mufasa in the clouds scene.


Their insperations were African art, tapestries (for the bright colours int the film) and visiting Africa. Hamlet, Moses and King Arthur are also mentioned as insperations.


On the 2nd disc there is a section about animals and looking at the real animals they based their characters. This section is not all about the real animals though. There is a section called 'Disney & Animals'. This section is about Disney and their use of animals.

It did after all start with a mouse. Walt inspired his artists to make their drawings of animals better and more realistic with every film. Walt "It's always a challenge bringing a great story classic to the screen, giving visual form to characters and places that have only excisted in the imagination".


It goes on to mention how Disney always brings animals in or go see them in the wild. It also mentions Seal Island. Also the True Life Animal Kingdom at Disney World. Its also talks about the Disney films that involve real life animals such as The Shaggy Dog.

Roy Walt, says when commenting on the opening of 'Disney's Animal Kingdom', "This atrraction garrantees the longstanding union of the worlds of Disney nature fantasy and animal for generations to come."

Walt said after a hard meeting 'Sometimes I prefer Animals to people'.

The section on Character Design for Scar was very interesting. The Supervising Animator for Scar does actually keep calling him a person and makes a lot of anthropomorphic references. I will try and write up the large section where he does this as I am sure it will be helpful.